During 2015–16, we have seen a 33% increase in use of digital platforms, reaching record accesses of 9.5 million accounts via myGov.

The number of myGov logon-navigations to member services has increased by 93% in 2015‑16.

To support unprecedented demand and community expectations for 24/7 online access, the department has deployed highly available ICT infrastructure that is scalable with capacity on demand to meet customer needs. This infrastructure is further challenged during the peak demand periods, such as the end of the financial year, calendar year and holiday processing periods. Complex data modelling indicates service demand profiles so that infrastructure capacity can be increased in anticipation of demand peaks.

Service stability

In 2015–16 the department reduced priority 1 incidents to 0.4 per month in line with industry best practice. This compares to 1.2 priority 1 incidents per month in 2014–15.

Telstra contract

The department continued to consolidate our telecommunications services through a new, managed service contract with Telstra. This has led to greater efficiencies and productivity improvements for staff and significantly enhanced service delivery.

In April 2016 Telstra implemented One DHS Routing and iWS (Interaction Workspace) to Medicare and Child Support services. One DHS Routing provides a single phone contact centre platform and a common capability for all of the department’s programmes. The iWS softphone application is now common across the department and will increase the ability to respond and mobilise work teams across the network during peak demands and emergencies.

The progressive roll-out to Centrelink services started in late April 2016. These are major steps towards establishing an ‘any agent anywhere’ facility across the department. Final transition to the new contract, including a new workforce management tool, is expected to finish in August 2016.

Data Centre consolidation

In December 2015 the department removed all equipment from the Tuggeranong Data Centre. This achieved the department’s target of 2 data centres, located at Fyshwick and Hume in the Australian Capital Territory. During the year we also continued to migrate data and applications off older infrastructure onto new, faster, more reliable and more condensed data communications and computing infrastructure, with a focus on deploying leading-edge, converged infrastructure technology.

ICT support for other government agencies

The department continued to provide ICT support to other Australian, state and territory government agencies, including:

internet gateway services to eight departments and agencies

data warehousing and business information services to several departments, primarily for the Department of Social Services and the Department of Health. The services include collecting data from transaction processing systems and formatting, relating and storing that data in a data warehouse, and developing analytical and reporting products that use it